So…Risen 3 Looks Great, Has Day/Night Cycles and NPC Schedules

Piranha Bytes have realized, somewhat belatedly, that they should be marketing Risen 3 to non-German-speaking audiences, it would seem, as evidenced by the 12-minute video embedded above. It’s worth a watch if you want to see what the latest installment in the Risen saga is all about.

And I’d recommend giving it a watch, because there’s a lot in there that should appeal to Ultima fans. There’s also a navigation menu embedded across the top of the video, which allows viewers to jump between topics of interest.

Of course, that’s really no surprise; Piranha Bytes have been taking cues from the Ultima series ever since they released the first Gothic game. Their inclusion of widespread object interactivity, NPC schedules, and other “living world” features wouldn’t have seemed out of place in Ultima 7, for example, and it’s even arguable that the first Risen game could kind of serve as a “spiritual prequel” to Ultima 8.

Which, I guess, would make this game also something of a “spiritual prequel” to said same game, since its plot follows directly from its predecessors.

There’s a preview of the game here, and it can be pre-ordered from Steam or, funnily enough, the Humble Store.

2 Responses

  1. Sanctimonia says:

    Dude A: “Go fuck yourself.”
    Dude B: “You’re just cruising for a bruising.”

    Awesomely funny. Being serious though the game does look great. The only possible bad thing I can see is the bit about the world being hand crafted with nothing being generated. That’s a bit of a double edged sword, as it usually means that the world is static. As in you can cast a lightning spell that would kill a dragon at a fence post and, behold; the fence post remains. It will be nice when devs someday discover how to combine the best of hand crafting and systems-based dynamism.

    One other small nitpick is the bragging about having an unrestricted inventory. That’s fine for Quake III Arena, but kinda strange for a deep RPG. Is that a 50 pound wooden chest in your pocket, or…?

    • WtF Dragon says:

      I’ll see your objection to an unrestricted inventory and raise you the nigh-infinite* inventory system of U6.

      * thanks to that bug with nested containers, but even so…

      As to the static world…PB try to make things as dynamic as possible, but this game engine is a few years old now, so I’m not betting on fully destructible environments. But equally, I’m cool with being surprised in this respect.